Garrosh 25HC Guide - Open to suggestions

Updated: Redid a lot of the tactics after more research.

So our guild has just downed Klaxxi and we're about to start work on Garrosh. I've written up the tactics that we plan on using, so the purpose of this thread is twofold:
1. Allow people to see a guide of a possible way to do this encounter
2. Allow people to make suggestions so that our and other guilds can save time on progress

Note that I haven't actually spent any time fighting this boss yet, so some of these things may sound stupid to people that have already had a lot of experience

Garrosh Hellscream 25HC Guide

The first 3 phases here are basically exactly the same as normal, you just need to pay more attention to mechanics that before weren't a big deal.

So, annoyingly, it's phase 4 that is probably going to be the hardest to learn, and we'll have to go through the long process of phases 1, 2, and 3 just to have a go.

I think to do this fight efficiently, we're going to need to assign a fair few things, so it's vital that you make sure you know what your job is and how to do it.

Going to 4-heal this (or maybe eventually 3 if our dps proves too little), as the healing is only occasional bursts (like Seige was), and extra dps can help a lot here (can be the difference between one less whirling corruption etc).

The healers I would opt to use would be:
Yax - Holy Priest
Tes - Resto Shaman
Avatarin - Disc Priest
Crialus - Resto Druid
(May be useful to have Lya on his Warlock)

Phase 1:

Desecrate - This can target any player at range, unless there are less than 7 players at range, in which case it can target someone in melee. Note that "at range" means anyone who is not brown-nosing the boss, like, melee can't stand at max melee range (because then they'll count as range), you need to stand as close as you can to the boss. We assign 7 people to move to the top of the throne to bait the Desecrate. They then move back to the middle, and the weapon is dps'd down before the next Desecrate (by which point our 7 are on the throne again). These are ideally classes that can get out of the Desecrate quickly, such as Warlocks (portal), Mages (blink). However, any ranged dps or healer will do as they won't take much damage from the Desecrate anyway (in fact with speed increase can be out of it before it lands).

Seige Engineers - These have 9mil health, but also a very small time frame to kill them. Ideally we would send 3 rogues to kill these, as they are quick and can survive the iron star damage without needing to be in range of healers. If we only have 2 rogues, I think a hunter is probably good as well. I have seen a warlock being able to solo the engineer by saving all 4 embers and then filling the orc with chaos bolts to do the required 9mil, which is also a possibility if Soli is up for this, as might then mean more dps on boss if we have only one dps fighting the engineer. We need to be prepared to possibly kill three of these.

Iron Star - Depending on our dps, we will get 2 or 3 of these. They hit hard, but we have plenty of raid cds to cope.

Adds - Some of the adds now fixate on targets rather than being tanked. This just means more damage to whoever they're targeted on. Be prepared to use a personal if you are targeted by one. The Farseers still need to be interrupted (ideally on every cast) and prioritised. After Garrosh uses Warsong, the adds will start hitting a lot harder, at this point we can use externals on the targets to keep them alive. Assignments are at bottom.

It is an option to land the Desecrates in melee, and some guilds opt to place the first in melee and the second on the throne (and then phase it before third). My thoughts are we might as well place them all on the throne, at least while practicing. The fixated adds are going to hit hard when they get buffed by Garrosh, so be prepared to use a personal / spot heal people. The adds will be mass-gripped to a BM statue in the path of the Iron Star. We may have to kill three engineers depending on our dps, and it is viable to just sit three rogues by them for the entire phase.

Times are roughly (taken from Method's video, as our dps is probably close to what their's was):
Iron Star 0:54
Iron Star 1:38
Iron Star 2:19

Transition 1:

So now we get to the first challenging part. Temple of the Jade Serpent is always the first transition. There are 5 sets of 3 sha adds, each needing to be interrupted and killed. The raid will be split into 5 groups, and each group will deal with a set of adds. I think we need 2 aoe interrupts per group, abilities like:
- Disrupting Shout (Warrior)
- Shadowfury (Warlock)
- Binding Shot (Hunter)
- GLYPHED Blinding Light (Paladin)
- Capacitor Totem (Shaman)
- Arcane Torrent (Blood Elf)
So if we have a combined total of 10 of the classes above, we should be fine. Each group will have ~ 4 dps, so single target interrupts/stuns will also help if the rotation fails. If absolutely necessary then possible to have Warrior's spec for Shockwave.

We simply start with a Stampeding Roar, run to our groups, nuke/interrupt the adds. We need as many people as possible to gain the 50% DR buff that the bubbles give. To do this, any bubbles from the front 3 sets of adds will be left until everyone has killed their adds. Then they get surrounded by raid members (but not touched), and then burst when everyone is close to one. Then we run to Garrosh and dodge the Annihilate's while dps'ing him.

There will be 8 Annihilate's (Shadow damage), and they are about 3 seconds apart. Shouldn't need too many raid CDs here, but we will use some. People that failed to get the 50% DR may need to use personals.

Anyone who stands in Annihilate is a nab.

Times:
Annihilate 3:16 .. 3:50

Phase 2:

As soon as we land, we move the boss to the right-hand section of the room, while the Desecrate team moves to a marker to bait the first weapon. The first weapon comes quickly, and after it the Desecrate 7 run back into melee. Then we get MC's, and then we get Whirling Corruption. We will get 3 Whirling Corruptions until the second transition.

Desecrate - The Desecrate 7 bait these to the edges of the room, and then run back into melee for the MCs. The room is huge, but it will help if we do some damage to the weapons to make it easier to kite the P2.5 adds, so the weapons will be multi-dotted.

MCs - Players need to be interrupted and nuked down, just as on normal mode. This is going to be more efficient if we attempt to assign an aoe interrupt rotation as well as single target interrupts for people out of the group. We are most likely to going to be stacked for 95% of our MCs, meaning they can be mass silenced and cleaved down in seconds. If, however, we get some MCs stuck out of the group, we can use a rotation so that people know who they should interrupt. Aoe silences are great here, such as Disrupting Shout, Solar Beam, and Arcane Torrent.

Whirling Corruption - We have two options here. Stay stacked and soak it, or move the boss and melee into the centre of the room so that the ranged take less damage. We will try with the former first, and gauge what the damage is like. We will have three of these, and they are about 1 minute apart.

We just repeat the Desecrate - MC - Whirling pattern three times, and then it takes us into the second transition.

Times for this phase:
Desecrate 4:00 - Magic 7 at marker, raid to right
MC 4:06 - Magic 7 stacked in melee, cleave and interrupt MCs
Whirling 4:23 - Magic 7 start to move out, we use cds
Desecrate 4:35 - Magic 7 move back in when this is thrown
MC 4:52 - Magic 7 stacked in melee, cleave and interrupt MCs
Desecrate 5:13 - Magic 7 have ran out, run back in when this is thrown
Whirling 5:14 - Use cds
MC 5:39 - Magic 7 stacked in melee, cleave and interrupt MCs
Desecrate 5:46 - This is very soon after the MC, so Magic 7 need to be quick to get out (maybe Stampeding Roar here)
Whirling 6:06 - CDs again, prepare for transition

Transition 2:

The second transition is in Terrace of the Endless Springs. The main difference here is that shadow missiles rain on the ground, fearing people that they hit (think Tsulong night phase). These are completely avoidable, but there are a lot of them. Yax and Avatarin will place Fear Wards on themselves, while Chenae will Fear Ward whichever tank is going to take the adds.

We start with a Stampeding Roar and run all the way up the steps. It is important that we apply no CC to any of the adds, as this will mean they won't be clumped up when we reach the top and it will take us longer to kill them all (thus Garrosh will gain more energy). At the top, we nuke them down, and we each take a bubble that spawns. Make sure not to take a bubble if you already have the buff. During the whole time you will have to be moving out of the way of the shadow missile landing zones. We can employ a simple Tremor Totem rotation once we're at the top:
Tes -> Nef -> Garth

We then get 8 Annihilate's, where (hopefully) we can use whatever CDs we assigned for the first transition Annihilate's.

Look at this: http://youtu.be/6P-iySQ2XDc?t=6m29s

Basically, we run to the back of the room and can ignore most of the mechanics. Not sure if we need a couple people running around to bait the missiles or not.

Disadvantages:
- No extra dps on Garrosh (lose about 25 seconds of uptime)
- Boss energy likely will go above 75, meaning we have Empowered MCs in next phase (but not really an issue because we deal with these in the same way as normal MCs)

If this doesn't work out well for us, then we probably either need more dps or just to do this phase properly.

Phase 2.5:

We now have Empowered Whirling Corruptions and Empowered Mind Controls (latter only if we cheesed 2nd transition).

To deal with EWC, we will have ranged stacked at range prior to the Whirling. When it comes, we will use raid cds and the ranged group will move together out of the purple explosions. The adds will all spawn in one place, and then BM Monk can kite the adds around the room. Mass grip to Monk may be helpful for handling these adds for the rest of the fight.

Timings will be roughly:
Desecrate 7:32 - Placed out of the way by Magic 7, who very quickly stack for MCs
MC 7:38 - Possible that some of Magic 7 not in centre at this time. Deal with it.
Whirling 7:52 - Plenty of time for ranged to get to a ranged spot. The spot will be next to a Desecrate, with room to run on the other side. When Whirling hits, CDs are used and ranged moves together out of the purple zones. BM Monk picks up adds.
Desecrate 8:06 - The Magic 7 do not run back in after the Whirling, so that they can place this Desecrate somewhere
MC 8:22 - Back in melee for MCs
*Whirling 8:44 - Ranged back out again for Whirling
*Desecrate 8:52 - All ranged stay out for this Desecrate, as it is very quick and if you start running towards melee you'll probably not reach before it gets thrown at you in a fuck off position
MC 9:10 - Stack and cleave

*I think these may sometimes come in the other order

If we get even more then we'll just continue in a similar fashion.

Phase 3:

We get Garrosh to 10%, and then he heals up a bit. We tank him in the centre of the room (hopefully all our other Desecrates are at the far edges). We use Heroism at this point. We deal with mechanics as in Phase 2.5. Remember:

Empowered Desecrate - Weapons can't be killed.

Timings around:
Desecrate 9:42 - Magic 7 deal with this one, then run back in
MC 9:54 - Cleave and interrupt
Whirling 10:10 - Handle as in P2.5. Desecrate very soon after so do not run in afterwards until after the Desecrate. Place it somewhere nice.
Desecrate 10:18
MC 10:30
Desecrate 10:44 - Magic 7
Whirling 11:00 - Handle as before, but run in ASAP afterwards for the MC
MC: 11:10 - Cleave and interrupt. Some people may not have been able to reach melee.
Desecrate 11:36 - Magic 7

Phase 4:

After the roleplay, we move to the right side of the harbour. Here we stack in 3 groups forming a triangle. There will be two melee groups of 6 people each behind the boss on the left and right sides, and the ranged group behind them to make the tip of the triangle. We should all fit in a healing rain. We stack on one foot, and wait for the first Malice.

How Malice works:
Garrosh will target someone and debuff them with Malice. The person with Malice will damage and apply a stacking debuff to the closest 5 allies for every tick (7? ticks total). There is a purple circle surrounding the Malice target so they can see who they are going to affect. If not enough people are hit each tick, then the entire raid explodes.

How we deal with Malice:
We start all stacked on a foot. When Malice comes, everyone except the target runs to the left of the purple circle. If you get the debuff, you move out before you can get a second stack. When your debuff runs out, you run back in. (Decided this was easier than having the Malice person run between two groups)

Near the end of the second Malice, Garrosh will cast Bombardment. This rains meteors down at the raid, and these need to be avoided. At the same time, he will check for clumps (7+) of raiders, and spawn an Iron Star at each clump. We only want one Iron Star, the entire phase, and we want it from the first Bombardment.

We repeat this cycle, with the addition of handling the Iron Star. We have BM Monk kite the Iron Star. He needs to kite it, and then make sure he is the closest to it each time it is going to reset its fixate.

When Garrosh reaches 100 energy, he will cast Manifest Rage, which can only be interrupted by kiting the Iron Star into him. So we do this. It will also interrupt the whole raid unless we use a Devotion Aura, so we might as well. The first Manifest Rage should happen in between the 3rd and 4th Malice. Depending on how soon we interrupt Manifest Rage (it is a cast followed by a channel), we may have some adds spawn, if we do, tank and kill them.

To help with the Malice's we will need to choose 6 people with good immunities (hunters, rogues, paladins) to help soak occasional ticks. Henceforth referred to as the Chosen 6. Whenever they are needed to soak, they must ensure they do not get any Malice stacks prior to when they need to soak (i.e. they stay out of the purple circle).

The difficulty in this phase comes in how Malice and Bombardment line up. Here are the timings:Malice 1: 12:28 - Simplest. Done as described above.Malice 2: 12:58 - This overlaps with the first Bombardment. Chosen 6 refrain from getting stacks before Bombardment.Bombardment 1: 13:08 - Chosen 6 stand on Malice target (+1 more person if Malice target is one of Chosen). This is clump of 7 so spawns Iron Star and is greater than 5 so Malice doesn't hit raid. Everyone else spreads so as not to spawn an Iron Star. Chosen 6 spread when first Iron Star is fired (Hunters doing a quick Disengage helps) to prevent spawning a second Iron Star (we may get 1 Malice explosion on raid if Malice hasn't quite ran out by the time they spread). Boss is moved left. Do not group up again until Bombardment is over (especially melee who will be tempted to all run into the same position).Malice 3: 13:28 - Simple.Manifest Rage: 1 13:48 - Cast followed by channel. Aim to interrupt him during cast. Use a Devo Aura if one is spare.Malice 4: 13:58 - The hardest Malice. This is essentially the same time as Bombardment. We need 5 of the Chosen to soak this Malice (or all 6 if one of them is the Malice target). Each of the Chosen do this: Take 2 stacks - use immunity (removes stacks and then lasts for 2 ticks) - take 2 stacks. We use healing cds at this point as this is the most likely part where someone will die. We only have 6 people in this Malice, because 7 would spawn an Iron Star.Bombardment 2: 14:06 - We can take the boss back to where we take him at the start at this point.Malice 5: 14:28 - Simple.Bombardment 3: 14:44 - Malice ends just before, so don't need to do anything fancy.Malice 6: 14:58 - Need to be very quick stacking in melee here as the Malice will come at the end of the Bombardment, and if we're still spread from the Bombardment then the Malice is going to do a lot of damage.Manifest Rage 2: 15:18 - Don't have an Iron Star to interrupt this one. We're just trying to burn him ASAP.Malice 7: 15:28 - In all likelihood, either us or Garrosh is dead by this point.

I'll also include example assignments (obviously will change depending on your setup, this is what we plan on using):

Overall pretty great tactics wise considering you haven't actually killed it. Few pointers I picked up when reading through it though.

P1:
-Assign people to the 'Super 7' group that can DPS/Heal while moving. We use hunters, resto druids, warlocks and eles typically depending on who is in the raid at the time.
-You do not need this many CDs for the Iron star explosions. 1 per should be plenty, you will need them for the annihilates during transitions and whirling corruptions in P2.
-We use 3 rogues, or 2 rogues and a hunter permanently outside the raid to kill the engineers. We only ever get 2 engineers, if you get a 3rd DPS is low. After the 2nd they move into the group and DPS the boss.

DPS markers for this phase using 3 tanks, excellent DPS means you will get only 1 wolf rider and 2 packs of adds. Decent DPS you will get 2 wolf riders and 2, possibly 3 packs of adds. Bad DPS you will get a 3rd Iron star.

Remember you do not need to burn the adds down, 50% is fine, the iron stars will do the rest. Knockbacks combined with DK grips to the BM statue in the Iron star path will make this quite trivial to execute well.

P2:
You must push through the first transition before 25 energy.

The MC's should all be in melee range clumped up and cleaved down before they can even get their first cast off. A prot warrior is a decent AoE silence as a backup if really needed since they will never be targeted. No need to over complicate this.

If you plan on kiting the EWC adds during all of P2.5 you may need to kill off some of these desecrate weapons to free up some space for your BM monk. Pure multidotting should be plenty as they're not a high priority.

2nd transition:
Again grips / AoE stuns / Binding arrows once you're at the top work great here for keeping them stacked to kill them quickly. Sorting this out will be the deciding factor usually on whether you push you sub 50 energy or not.

P2.5:
I don't understand why you're not kiting the EWC adds from the start with a 3rd tank. Link to our first kill vid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G83kSTSG0lc (hunter pov, ignore my UI it's been completely redone since then). You can see how we move throughout P2.5 pretty well to deal with the EWC/picking up adds, desecrates and MC's.

P3:
The set of abilities the boss does at the 2nd EWC is nasty. He will cast EWC followed immediately by both MC's and a Desecrate (these 2 can come in either order). It's horrible to get the right amount of DPS and interrupts on each of these as it's random who gets targeted and they'll more than likely be spread out like fuck because of the desecrate. Really you want to push the P4 transition RP either before or during that EWC. It will save you a lot of hassle.

P4:
Assign a group to immunity soak the 4th malice. It will occur at the same time as a bombardment so you will need exactly 5 people + the person targeted by the malice itself. Any more in this group and you will spawn iron stars. You'll need 1 backup for these immunity soakers incase one of them is the malice target. These just soak up the malice while moving out of the fire, can play catch up with the boss afterwards their DPS isn't important here.

If you want extra DPS on the boss you can assign your BM monk to kite the IS in this phase. He should be able to kite it pretty much solo, but if he's struggling the priests can assist with feathers. Slightly easier for the rogue to do it if he's struggling with this though.

We kill Garrosh 25 heroic without using the kite strat, but that's more because it is what we were used to coming from 10m than anything else. If you can kite, do it. If you don't have that option, you need to prepare for the reality that having a person just kill their own add is not sufficient. You need people to help others, but you also need them not to pull threat and drag the add over another at the wrong time.

The empowered whirls, regardless of what strat you use, are the most crucial strategic element of the fight. Know what strat you're going to do, why, and how for this. Your current strat for the EWC's seems a bit too loose. Plan and define.

Also for p1 intermission, it probably won't be necessary once you get the hang of it, but you probably have enough abilities to plan a third interrupt set for each group. No reason not to set that up.

For your 2.5 phase you should really be stacking for the MC, moving all ranged out to one spot and then moving together to a spot at the edge to drop the desecrate. At the same time have a tank kite the adds that spawn. This tactic gives significantly more uptime on the boss and will allow you to push much faster.

I won't go over the tactic in depth because you can watch hundreds of guilds' videos do the same.

We also dropped down to 3 healers for our first kill (rdruid, dpriest, hpala). In 25m you can really afford to do this as so much of the damage can be avoided by not being bad / good cooldown management.

In Phase 1, flip the raid. Tank Garrosh on the side opposite the throne and kill the engineer on that side, this allows the Korkron Wolf Rider to get hit by the Iron Star and take off a good 30 million health. Using this and light cooldowns to stack/kill Desecrates on the raid, you can push Garrosh right as the 2nd Wolf comes in and end P1 a good 20-30 seconds earlier. This is important because you want to get Garrosh down to 93% or 94% before the transition even happens.

In Transition 1, all tanks should do what they can (Diffuse Magic, Shield Wall + Barrier + Pain Suppression, Zen Meditation, Guard, Ironbark + Hand of Sacrifice, whatever) to purposefully stand in Annihilates for Vengeance. Done right, this can result in an extra 3-4% being taken off Garrosh's health for free.

In Phase 2, it is more DPS to have ranged be out for Desecrate and run in, and then move Garrosh somewhere else (typically in a square pattern) to create range again. This is because having ranged run in and run out disrupts their DPS twice, whereas having ranged run in, then Garrosh move only disrupts them once, and melee do not lose DPS when moving. The purpose of this is to get Garrosh sub-25% before the transition, which allows pushing him into Phase 3 afterwards with only one Empowered Whirling.

In Phase 2.5/3, again move Garrosh in a square pattern. If the kiter has to run through a weapon or two, that's fine, Monks have Diffuse Magic, Guard, and Expel Harm. Rather than having ranged run in a line though, you can have your ranged all be people with 90% damage reductions or full immunities (Boomkin cloak from a Rogue, Iceblock, Dark Bargain, Deterrance, etc) and be slightly spread out so that they may all stand still and keep doing damage. The BrM should have no trouble picking up adds like this, one keg at each swirl on the ground will pick up each add. Heavy cooldowns must be used, as add spawn locations are random and many will fall on melee anyways. Utilizing these tactics, you should be able to push into phase 4 before a second Empowered Whirling happens in P3, meaning you will only get two total.

In phase 2.5, if all the ranged, caster dps and heals are away from the boss for empowered whirling corruptio does the melee get targeted by the aoe that spawns adds?
We want to use the "run and let the monk kite the adds" strat but i dont know if melee should run too or they can stay on the boss without getting destroyed.

- - - Updated - - -

Also i was looking for a good malice weak aura. Something that tells you the stacks you have, the duration of the debuff, and has a "you can go in and soak" signal. This way i can tell my raiders to get the aura and "if you have green indicator stay in, if not stay out till you have green"

In phase 2.5, if all the ranged, caster dps and heals are away from the boss for empowered whirling corruptio does the melee get targeted by the aoe that spawns adds?
We want to use the "run and let the monk kite the adds" strat but i dont know if melee should run too or they can stay on the boss without getting destroyed.

Also i was looking for a good malice weak aura. Something that tells you the stacks you have, the duration of the debuff, and has a "you can go in and soak" signal. This way i can tell my raiders to get the aura and "if you have green indicator stay in, if not stay out till you have green"

If you are using the ranged running strat, ideally you'd want melee, or at least majority of them but Rogues to run together with range group too. Melee can always be targets for the AoE that spawn add, regardless of their (or the range group) distance to boss.